refreshed

you know me, always matching and at the height of fashion and all things coordinated, i needed to pick a photo to match my snazzy new color scheme and layout here on the ol' blog. sorry to dig deep into the depths of chemo, round three, in order to get it done, but i think it is somewhat fitting to go back in order to go forward, in this case. if you saw me today you'd barely recognize me as the same girl from this photo. somehow i think i look a bit more alive, less pale, more hair, perhaps even a little more shine in my eyes. that is hard though, as it was christmas day in this photo and i think i'd just opened my really cool bike stand from jimnerd. anyway, backward to get forward, you are wondering about?

well, i am getting ready to face another round of treatments for the c funk. this time it is a combination, a collaboration, if you will, between radiation therapy and chemo. my old friend and companion, cisplatin, will make an appearance but taxotere has to sit this one out and move over for a drug that promises to make radiation more potent, etopocide. the general idea is that i will have chemo six days, then i will have "off" from chemo for about ten days, then back on it for another six. i have weekends off, but radiation will be every day beginning next thursday (wednesday will be a trial run).

i could be miserable, looking back and thinking, oh crap, i hate that chemo, it makes me feel ridiculous, look ridiculous, it reduces me to nothing and then i have to build it all back up again. and this time, it will start making me feel bad and i have to go day after day for six days? nuh-uh. blah. no way. looking back, you see, it is easy to remember the badness of the drugs.

lucky for me, i planned for this, and i have more good to look back on than bad. see me in that picture above? i wasn't forcing a smile. i was happy. genuinely. the gifts helped, but in general, i was in a phase where i realized that this is the road i am on, there's no getting off until the right exit, and i need to find a way to be happy, because that is the only way to get through this thing. my other option, as i say again and again, is really not at all acceptable. so, as i prepare to face the chemo monsters and their killing ways (and thank goodness they kill, and dear god, cheer them on to do a heck of a lot more killing this time around) and this new radiation thing, i remember the good things that have brought me thus far and have kept me going.

lately it has been much easier to dwell on the "why me". mostly i think it is because the surgery really set me back, stopped me from doing what i love, and took away the activities i use to sort everything out and convince myself, yes, it is ok to be happy and fighting at the same time. when sitting still and resting i feel like myself. but pick up a bag that is too heavy, or try to run a bit, and i am left thinking life is so unfair, this happened to me fifty years too soon, what the heck.

so, today, i am officially signing off on feeling laid-up by surgery. i am succumbing to my anticipation to get on with treatment, to continue down the road. basically, what happened can be likened to getting into the HOV lane, thinking it will be faster, when really, you always end up stuck behind a drag-ass minivan driving five below the limit. i'm talking one of those HOV lanes where you can't get back to the other side for a number of miles. so now, i'm back with usual traffic, still prone to the occasional pothole, but generally much better off.

so, looking back to go forward. i can do this, no doubt. i'll be bald and beautiful again, but i did it before. and really, there's not much i can't do, as far as i can tell. at least today.